TimStr

@Algida Have you considered hypnosis? A skilled therapist should be able to take you to the event and could help you to rewire it. If you struggle to picture and vizualize the event that might be a valid option. Also, in a state of hypnosis, your subconscious becomes far more accessible and malliable, so going in there and changing gets much easier.

@Jordan wang That would be my advise, too. I just did the values assesment. Towards the end, there are some assesments, that provide you with insight on why you pursue the values, you picked. Also, when you start using the values list, keep the previous assesments in mind. The purpose of the assesments before was to show you, whats meaningful to you in life. A value is an abstract label, that should represent these meaningful moments in your life. You get clear about what the meaningful thing of the expreience was and than come up with a label for that. If your label is accurate, you can use it as a compass to guide you towards more meaningful experiences. Also keep in mind, that your values might change as you gain more life experience. Think about what was meaningful to you, before you heard about personal developement. Most likely not the same things as today. So its good to come back to the assesment from time to time and reevaluate if that set of words, you will generate still fits with your deepest, meaningful exsperiences.

Hi, I am from Baden-Württemberg as well. I am currently living in Konstanz.

@ItsMeIA WhatsApp is no good for any kind of intimate or honest communication. You learned your lesson right there. If you want to have REAL honest talks, do it when the two of you are alone in an relaxed environment. The other person being present, I find, is crucial because you also want the physical and emotional connection you don't get if your just exchanging information with WhatsApp. I remember that there's a great chapter in Brad Blantons book Radical Honesty about how to practice honesty and telling the truth to each other in relationships. He says, that telling the truth is crucial for making an intimate relationship work. And he advocates telling the truth with absolutely no respect for the other persons ego BUT in a very kind and loving manner. I think it's part of Leo's booklist. It's a great and fun read and, although written by a western psychotherapist, it taps right in the heart of the matter of what truth on a spiritual level is about. Make sure to check that one out.

We had a thread about quitting alcohol over at the health forum, not too long ago. Check it out if you want the How to.

I would like to elaborate on this one. There are a lot of nutriants, one can be deficient of, mostly micronutriants (vitamins and minerals) and essential fatty acids. But if you're living in a developed country and you have enough to eat, protein deficieny is nothing you have to worry about. And for good reason. Some ammount of protein is present in every animal and plant food. Remember, they're the building blocks of life (at least in a scientific sense). So, basically: If you're eating food, you get protein! In my opinion picking the right source of protein is far more important than worrying about the ammount. Its hard to come up with a diet, that falls below the guideline daily ammount (even with entirely plant based diets), exept for fasting or starvation diets. This myth on binging on protein in my opinion is mostly created by the supplement and protein powder industry. They want you to be neurotic about the protein to sell their products. Just like the myth, that you need dairy for having healthy bones. So what are the best sources then? Heres my list: beans and lentills: These are awesome for you, because they have all the great stuff of plant foods (minerals, vitamins, fibers) AND of animal foods (iron, b vitamins, and lots of protein) in them. Also, you get an extra bonus of active enzymes if you let them sprout, before eating. whole Rice and Pseudocerial are packed with protein and starches. If you aren't familiar with the term pseudocerial, these are seeds of non-grasses that can be used in much the same way as regular cereals (wheat, rye...). To name a few: Quinoa, Buckwheat, Chia and Amaranth. They provide you with the energy and nutriants of grains but they don't contain gluten. fish, eggs and white meat (preferably organic and pasture raised): Choose the best and healthiest sources of animal protein. In my opinion, animal products are unnecessairy of a healthy diet. But if you want to eat them, invest in the highest quality possible. Stay away from red meat, since its found to cause bowel cancer. Guess what, this all boils down to eat more plant foods and go as high quality (organic) as possible, which are some of the other points, that the experts commonly agree on. If you're not looking to build muscle, just take these as a guide and stop worrying about protein. Sources: mostly Michael Greger and Jimmy Bowden

Here are a few things, that helped me: Get the right motivation Having a positive motivation is crucial! Don't do anything, because of avoidance. You can't avoid your way to success. So if you want to stop drinking, don't do it to avoid hangover or a lack of productivity, but because, you can see the health benefits of this for your future. Vizualize regularely: Take 5 min and picture clearly in you mind how you are still all fit and healthy in your 70s. Picture how you play with your grandchildren... Allow yourself to get emotional about it. (The best vizualizations are the emotional ones.) Estimate how much money this will save you over the course of 1 month, 1 year... and what you can get for that money. That alone may be a strong kick in the ass. Remind yourself. The easiest reason to fail at anything is just to forget. Eliminate temptation Throw out all alcohol, you store at home. No exception. Try to stay away from bars, clubs and any other places, that encourage alcohol consumtions. They profit of you being drunk. And you better bet that they want to profit. At least in the beginnig, not being tempted is the easiest way to go. After you get used to it, you can actually start to go partying sober. For me personally, getting to a club and dancing is best, when I am as mentally clear as possible. I just love to feel actually connected with the experience. Be ok with being the "weird" one. Especially in the beginning, peer pressure can be very strong. Others will point to you and ask, if you're ill, if you joined a catholic monistairy, or if you're just being a dick, just because you behave differently. People will laugh at you. People will be seriously worried about you. So at first, don't join your friends when they're out, drinking. After a few weeks, when you built up some momentum, you can meet them and get exposed to some social pressure. This is a hard one: Consider breaking ties with people. If you have a circle friends, that you just meet to get drunk, this may be the right option. It takes a while until it becomes normal to them and to you. In the mean time fake it, till you make it. Act, as if its the most ordinairy thing on earth. Don't justify yourself. The moment you start justifying you secretly admit, that you have to justify for not drinking. But you don't! Volunteer as a driver, when you‘re out with friends. Best excuse ever. Do it step by step For most peoples minds, its hard to commit to a "never again in my entire life". So commit to stay sober for today. Tomorrow make the same commitment. If you're out with your friends on satureday, just commit to stay sober for that satureday. Next satureday do the same. Be mindful of any other bad stuff, you start doing to avoid feeling sober. Of cause, its no good to stop drinking, if you start doing cocaine instead. But there can be more mild stuff than that. Smoking, energy drinks, binge eating... That may not nescessairely happen, but just watch out for any other bad habits, that may sneak in and take the place, that drinking had. Get good a sense of how you feel. Being sober all the time is an acquired taste, but after a few weeks of no intoxicants, you will love the feeling of being clear mentally. Your body will reward you with great performance and an overall vibrant and fresh feeling. You get a greater sense of connection to any experience. This really doubtails with the concept of "Awareness Alone Is Curative", see: www.youtube.com/watch?v=qy_INVm_Pw0 Last but not least: Meditate you're way out of addiction! Just to be clear: Drinking may not nescessairly be considered an addiction by most people because drinking regularely is kind of a standard in western society. But I consider addiction anything that you feel bad about mentally, if you had to stop doing it even if they're no physical withdrawl symptoms. The source of all addictions is the need to feel different, because you can't stand how the present moment is. Meditation is the best way, to get in touch and learn to cope with the present moment. Crucial video for you: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5ZYV-IMIUU It's the best habit, I picked up in my life. Have faith! You can do it!

I also wrote a summary of Leos newest video. You can have a look at it here: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s97/sh/99cd918b-606b-4903-b981-2950e46c84a7/bada1c2996270a2d4b3d472c1c8f1570 But I also want to share, how I felt about this video: I noticed, that after watching and summarizing I feel somewhat insecure and confused. It feels like I know less now, after watching the video, than before. And, in a sense, I think, that was exactly the point of this video. To open me up and shatter my foundation to make more understanding possible to occur. I guess, the most practical action step, I can derive from the episode is to keep rewatching it from time to time, to rip my mind open again and again and slowly but surely assimilate the principles of proper research and understanding, while acquiring consciousness over my very own mistakes and the trickery of my own ego.

So lately, as I am studying more and more self-help material, especially books, I stumbeled about the commonplace book as a powerful way to collect and organize knowledge, ideas and insights. Many powerful and highly effective people used commonplace books for collecting their thoughts, like Francis Bacon, Ronald Reagan and John Milton. Unlike a journal, which is more of a chronological and introspective record of thoughts, commonplacing is about structuring and organizing ideas and insights. It can become an immense collection of the wisdom and knowledge, if kept over the course of a lifetime. I read about several methods on how to actually have one, but I'm not quite sure, how I want to go about it. So my questions to you are following: Do you have a commonplace book? How do you keep it (digitally, handwritten...)? How do you organize it? How do you transfer knowledge (eg. from reading a book) into it? Thanks for all your suggestions and help.

As I am contemplating death more often, I find myself becoming extremely anxious about the fact, that my time on this earth is limited, and that sooner or later I won't be able to give my gifts. I am sure that this question can only be dealt with on a spiritual level, and that theres no way to rationally accept this existential fear. So what do I have to do to loose my fear of death?

It was over 3 years ago, when I got introduced to self-actualization coincidentally. I watched one of Leo's videos (I think it was "How to deal with a break-up") and that immediately rang a bell in me and made me recognize that digging into this topic could change my life. And it did, in many ways and made me become the self-help junkie, that I am now. I am highly driven by this topic and I want to share it, because I see how much peoples lifes would improve. I don't consider becoming a professional coach, I just want to help along my friends, family and other people in my life. In my opinion, the two best ways for me to do that are: becoming the best version of myself and being an inspiration for others introduce them to personal delvelopement in order to help them for self-help I want to find a way, that really "sells" the concept of self improvement to them in a way, that makes it stick to them and their lifes just like it happened to me. I'm not really sure though, how I can accomplish that. Here are a few of my ideas: showing them a specific video of Leo's, like How to stop being a victim The most important commitment ... giving a book to them, like Lennard: Mastery Hendricks: The Big Leap ... just briefly talk to them and tell my own experiences and tell them how to start What do you think? What is the most successful way to inspire people to get deep into personal developement? Sidenote: I am aware of the fact that personal developement may not be for everybody, and that I might not be successful. I just want to find the one, most powerful, way to talk about this topic with others, that has the potential to really get them hooked.

I lately thought about what stage in the Claire Graves model I am at. I came to the conclusion that I am mostly green or below and I wanted to make clear to myself, what I have to do to move up to higher stages. I'll just share my notes on that topic, as I think that they may be valuable to others. Many of them are excerpts from a Talk of Ken Wilber about integral spirituality (https://youtu.be/H4jcxxJ_0ok?t=39m50s). Feel free to share your own thoughts. What is stage green: a stage of the spiral dynamics model post-modern, pluralistic, relativistic, cultural creative, diversity, participatory can take a 4th person perspective, can reflect on 3rd person perspectives (eg. science), can reach conclusions from a higher level of generality, like: universal truths (like science) are to rigid and too excluding of other types of truths all cultures have their own view and shouldn't be judged on the is no absolute view, every view is relative and pluralistic "You have whats true for you, I have whats true for me. Both views are right, even if they disagree with another." Benefits of this stage: hypersensitivity to imposing values on anybody attention to oppression of anybody (esp. minority) civil rights movements, environmental movement, rights for minorities in religion Problems with this stage (pathologies): postmodernists claim: "All truths are socially constructed. None has universal validity." but postmodern claims, that that is true for all cultures, places, times it claims, that it is universally true, that there are no universal truths (paradox) it believes, that there is no superior view, but that its view is superior to all the alternatives (ignorant) for level Green, THAT is an universal truth (ignorant) What I have to do to transcend: re-accept absolute truths start to see the system of development, that individuals, groups, culture... goes through reshaping my life so that support growths on all lines (cognitive, ethical, aesthetic, spiritual, kinesthetic, logical...) start to see the big picture, meta-theory (like the integral theory) start to see, that stage green is overly idealistic begin to do actual work on consciousness and get direct experiences of truth What is integral (https://youtu.be/H4jcxxJ_0ok?t=1h03m42s): entirely different type of stage (2nd tier), because (in contrast to the previous stages, that see each other as wrong) it sees all the other stages as important part of the process, one has to go through → inclusive, holistic level Spiral Dynamics (stage Yellow) integrated, systemic... individuals are no longer driven by deficiency drives, but abundance drives (Maslow) they are looking for all things integral looking for a spirituality, that deals with a transformation of their own consciousness (paths of waking up)

@jcgiusto Thanks for sharing these. I also have some video summaries to share, so I just post them in this thread, instead of creating a new one. Feel free to use these in whatever way you like. These summaries may contain spelling errors, some have german side notes and translations (my mother tongue) and some of them have some of my personal notes and thoughts in them. Some of them have a style that is more transcript- than summary-like. I used Evernote to take notes and do the summaries, so i just share the public links to the notes. I will share more summaries in this thread, as I create them. 3 Step Formula To Be Ruthlessly Effective At Anything: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s97/sh/68ec1510-9ded-4337-9fd5-b8ea3ed53ffd/0c93b4900396b4c96718cd215f65a155 Meditation Techniques: Do Nothing - The Simplest Meditation Possible: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s97/sh/74b3f66b-4868-40ab-a4be-4a6e12dd8a48/e109e7108696bf8d282e2df0d8f9b762 Benefits of enlightenment: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s97/sh/ad6c4253-e0c5-4b40-8851-b47e22e319a5/5942668978ee812a2bd87017f1814b30 Overcoming Addiction - The Root Cause Of Every Addiction: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s97/sh/b62ba95d-a657-4184-8a64-be4184cc4288/ef53e85438396979010b710e2a7bad9a 40 Signs That You Are Neurotic - Understanding Neurosis: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s97/sh/4f15a36b-8f53-44fc-bd2b-e2ca00adb97a/bb52d4a3bd36debe5ad90e421165da9a How To Be A Strategic Motherfucker - The 7 pillars of strategic thinking: https://www.evernote.com/shard/s97/sh/e1c355cb-6552-489c-aa43-0a5754d03391/96d1c48a81f1e042aa1941059069fc2e

@MutupoBut in a sense, one then can become addicted to doing stuff, that is beneficial. E.g. about 3 years ago, I hated eating clean. But I slowly developed healthier eating habits over time until I was able to stay on the diet, that I have now, which I consider relatively healthy and good for me. It became effortless for me to do that. But I noticed, that, whenever I wasn't able to eat as clean as I wanted to for whatever reason, I felt agitated. So I think one can become sort of addicted to doing the "good" stuff. Or maybe being over-obsessed is the better word. The key point is, that one still isn't fully at peace with whatever happens.

As I am contemplating death more often, I find myself becoming extremely anxious about the fact, that my time on this earth is limited, and that sooner or later I won't be able to give my gifts. I am sure that this question can only be dealt with on a spiritual level, and that theres no way to rationally accept this existential fear. So what do I have to do to loose my fear of death?

I first heard about lucid dreaming almost 3 years ago. As far as I am aware, most people use it for fun, since lucidity is supposed to be more a "real" and profound state, than the normal dream state. While I never managed to get a lucid dream, I am still very interested in this topic. Is there a way of using it for personal growth? Since it's a way to tap into subconsciousness, I suppose, there might be quite some use. But because most people seem to living out their fantasies in their lucid dreams, without actually living them out, this might also be a very distracting or maybe even counterproductive habit. What are your experiences? Is it something worthwhile, that I might want to get into for personal growth? Love to hear your thoughts and suggestions!

Konstanz, Germany

I heard about people, that accidentally entered a lucid dream state during meditation, because they were too sleepy. But doing it the other way round would be more convenient.

That would be a great idea, too, and I think, that the self-help community would greatly benefit of us, if we all shared the wisdom, that we collected. Yet, I shy away from using the journal section as a commonplace book, because I think, it's better suited for daily or weekly journal-type post, to tracking my results and holding me accountable. Awesome, that sound really promising. I'm really looking forward to that.

Thanks for the suggestion. What I wonder is this: Is lucid sleep actually as restful as normal sleep? Can I just have a whole night of lucid dreams and then go about my day normally?

As far as I understand it, your subconcous can only produce mental images according to what you have experienced already, or according to how you think, it may be like. I think it's unlikely, that an enlightement experience in a lucid dream gets anywhere colse to actual real enlightment, if you haven't experienced it before.

Yesterday, we had a discussion about Myer-Briggs pesonality type indicators. As I was researching this further, I stumbled about a website, with all sorst of psychology quizzes: http://www.theemotionmachine.com/psychology-quizze There are assessments about self-improvement mentality, confidence, big picture vs. detail oriented Thinking, introversion vs. extroversion, leadership mentatlity, and open-mindedness. Though I think, that they are mostly meant for fun, because they don't seem very scientific, they may be valuable to you for doing some introspection. I plan to do these regularely to monitor my results. Feel free to share your own assessments and thoughts.

I love that topic, first of all, here are my morning and evening routines (they sort of relate to another): Here's the morning routine: 5.30 am: Wake up, make bed, ice cold shower (sounds harsh, but it's the the only thing, that really gets me going, you get used to it ) Meditation (20 to 30 min) Planning: Reflecting on my mission statement & reviewing my daily to do's healthy breakfast (usually a green smoothy with some fruit, sprouts and seeds (I have soothies found to be the most energizing thing ever, better than caffeine), sometimes rolled oats with dried fruit, nuts and plant milk) And the evening routine: journaling (recently, I found myself journaling throughout the day more, so I sometimes skip that) Planning: reflecting the past day, planning the next one reading for about 30 min bedtime at 10.30 pm I'm still refining the routines, also I want to include working out, doing some affirmations and visualizations and maybe a second meditation in the evening. Also, I probably shift the reading to the morning routine after the breakfast, to make it the first thing, my mind focuses on. A thing about the planning and reflecting: I roughly plan the upcoming week the sunday before, and then review my plan every moring and evening as part of my daily routines, maybe make some minor adjustments. I found this to be the way, I am both productive and flexible.

Thanks for the suggestings. To put it simply, this is following the good old "fake it till you make it" attitude, right? (Chakral affirmations and visualizations are tools, that I have yet to get into a bit more.) But what I'm concerned with; is it even worth to pursure a change of personality, just for the sake of getting 4 other letters, the next time, I take the assessment? Because non of the personality types are inherently superior or inferior. Wouldn't it be wiser to shape my personality with my goals and purpose in mind an then use the test, to see where I'm at? Alternatively, one could look for the mbti of some role model one wants to mimik and than try to shape one's persoality towards that indicator. But I think, that the other way is the more direct one.

ENFP-A I read, that Myers-Briggs Personality types can change over the course of a single month and the last time, I did the assessment, I turned out to be INTJ. So since these personality types are not fundamentally cast in stone, how can this concept be used for personal growth? Just for observing, where I'm at? Or is there some sort of possibility to actively transform ones personality from one type to another? I highly doubt that. Human personality is way too complex to be categorized with just 16 different types.